Coconut Water causing Herx?!

Senior Member

I decided to increase my potassium intake today due to possible methylation induced hypokalemia, from 2g a day from food to 4.5g from food today, from half a glass low sodium v8, oatmeal, baked potato, chicken, quinoa and ground beef, and lastly, 1 8 oz cup of coconut water. Everything else I had today I’ve had with no issues many times but this was my first experience with coconut water. Within 1 hour of dinner and the CW, I started feeling restless and anxious inside. As the evening went on, my feet and hands were cold and clammy, air hunger/shortness of breath, horrible anxiety/buzzing/vibrations inside, and very stimulated. This lasted 2 solid hours with a very brief period of bad nausea that lasted 30 minutes somewhere in there. Whenever I get anxious I get palpitations so I can’t really count those to this.

First, I thought I just had too much potassium (even though from food sources) and thought I was dying so I took 500mg sea salt to potentially balance the potassium but I’ve felt these symptoms before taking other stuff like ACV and a strong mint tea (oddly enough). Similar feeling, but still a bit different. Maybe it’s overmethylation but I’m only using 400mcg methylfolate and 250 methyl-B12 in my multi and took that 8 hours ago. Again, slightly different than previous overmethylation disasters. The symptoms are subsiding finally and I think I can go to bed, but has that happened to anyone else with coconut water? Thanks in advance!

Senior Member

Ive been reacting negatively to foods I previously had no problems with before onset. Coconut oil makes me quite sick. Interestingly I had a bit of harmless harvest coconut water tonight with dinner and my gut is quite messed up at the moment (mostly nauseous/cramps)- not sure if that's it or the quesadilla I had but coconut definitely has lots of antimicrobials. I wouldn't be surprised if it caused some sort of herx reaction.

Did you know the RDA for potassium is 4700 mg? So your initial 2 grams a day was less than half of the RDA under normal circumstances, and eating 4.5 grams is the bare minimum we need. So if you have issues with hypokalemia, you may still need more potassium.

Re a herx and coconut water - I agree with @Sidny that coconut is high in antimicrobials. I used coconut oil to deal with candida and it was very effective, and it caused a very strong herx reaction, I had to go quite slowly with it.

Senior Member

Did you know the RDA for potassium is 4700 mg? So your initial 2 grams a day was less than half of the RDA under normal circumstances, and eating 4.5 grams is the bare minimum we need. So if you have issues with hypokalemia, you may still need more potassium.

Re a herx and coconut water - I agree with @Sidny that coconut is high in antimicrobials. I used coconut oil to deal with candida and it was very effective, and it caused a very strong herx reaction, I had to go quite slowly with it.

Years ago ACV caused a detox reaction for me. Anything that had cleansing properties triggered detox symptoms, which for me were fatigue, felt slightly poisoned, digestion off which sounds different than what you experienced. So I don't know what's going on with you here

Yeah, if I were you, I'd avoid coconut water for now since it seems to be the thing you were reacting to and try increasing your potassium in other ways if you think you need to do so. Absolutely one thing at a time! (I've learned the hard way! )

Moderator

@GreenMachineX - whoops! I got my links mixed up there …. I just changed the one I put in the above post for symptoms of high potassium from a product I was looking at on iherb rolleyes:!) to the proper one ...